New Activision and Intellivision plug+play units coming

[Flojomojo]

Still waiting on my order from the Intellivision Lives store. This sucks. No communication after a few friendly nudges, either. My goodwill towards their "2nd edition" product is evaporating.

[Lauren Tyler]

Crown of Kings as a new name for Cloudy Mountain? Why didn't they do this for Intellivision Lives! on PS2/XBox/GameCube? And why didn't they do something similar for Treasure of Tarmin??

[Flojomojo]

Larcen -- they did re-release Treasure of Tarmin as "Minotaur" on the "Intellivision Rocks" emulation disc for PC/Mac. This is the "unbranded" version of the game, just like "Deadly Discs" in the new plug and play is good old TRON Deadly Discs without the trademarked characters.

 

I received my box today after a long wait (ordered Sept 8, processed Sept 11, shipped Oct 5, received Oct 7, so service is a little wonky), and I'll try to play a little and post impressions when I can. It's a big fat Sega Genesis-style thumpad controller in fairly generic packaging.

[Flojomojo]

First impressions of Intellivision PnP "2nd Edition": something's wrong with the video output of my unit, so I'm going to try to see if it can be exchanged. Considering the wait time I had and the cost of shipping, I'm hoping they'll just send me a second unit so I can dissect this one.

 

"Original games have been modified to run on this unit" says the box. That's for sure. I can't see the output perfectly because of the video problem, but I can see enough to know that this is a Famiclone port, probably much like its predecessor. The graphics on the familiar games are close, especially on the iconic games like Astrosmash, but the sounds are missing and off. Crown of Kings sounds especially rotten, but could be a decent Roguelike game on its own terms. Since Deadly Discs was obviously completely reprogrammed, there's no need to wonder if they left the TRON Recognizer as an end-level boss: I didn't play long enough to see, but it's about as close to the original feel as the Atari Flashback's version of Battlezone is to the VCS version. Space Gunner is a Intellivision-esque shooting gallery, kind of like the "TV-Pixx" version of Space Battle, only uglier. Volleyball looks like Realsports Volleyball from the Jakks Atari sticks. I didn't play the other games on the unit yet.

 

Hopefully I'll get a working unit soon but in the meantime, it's plan to see that this collection fails as a retro piece and as a modern amusement. It's not close enough to the real Intellivision to appeal to fans of the old games, and it's not exciting enough on its own terms to make it worthwhile as a modern set of games. It's cheap, and it's better than the first Intellivision collection plug and play devices, but that's really not saying much.

 

:( :(

[+remowilliams]

First impressions of Intellivision PnP "2nd Edition"

Another Powered by ™ - retro product?

 

Great

Edited October 8, 2006 by remowilliams

[sidcrowe]

"They deserve our pity for their cluelessness, but not our money."

 

Hee hee

 

Yes, and I would like a Stern or Cinematronics, too.

[jaybird3rd]

Hopefully I'll get a working unit soon but in the meantime, it's plan to see that this collection fails as a retro piece and as a modern amusement. It's not close enough to the real Intellivision to appeal to fans of the old games, and it's not exciting enough on its own terms to make it worthwhile as a modern set of games. It's cheap, and it's better than the first Intellivision collection plug and play devices, but that's really not saying much.

... very, very disappointing. I really like the Blue Sky Rangers, and I want to support their plans for the Intellivision properties, but I can't spend any more money on yet another NOAC that I'm never going to use; I've already got two of their Intellivision 10-in-1 handhelds somewhere around here, gathering dust. Now that the FB2 has permanently raised the bar, these half-baked NOAC systems are only going to get harder and harder to accept. The only exception would be a really good one like the Jakks Atari 13-in-1 Paddle, but I suspect that something of similar quality is probably beyond the means of Techno Source.

 

If they want me to buy another one of their handhelds, Intellivision Productions should (finally!) dump Techno Source and take Curt up on his offer of building them a totally new unit based on a genuine Intellivision chipset. The hardware can't be any more expensive than what they're paying now for the NOAC (plus whatever Chinese coders they've hired to butcher their games for them), and once they're got the hardware, they can load it up with as many of their original games as they want for nothing.

 

Sorry guys ... no sale here.

Edited October 8, 2006 by jaybird3rd

[BrianC]

Space Gunner is a Intellivision-esque shooting gallery, kind of like the "TV-Pixx" version of Space Battle, only uglier.

Volleyball looks like Realsports Volleyball from the Jakks Atari sticks. I didn't play the other games on the unit yet.

 

As I said before in a previous post in this very topic, Space Gunner is one of the games from Sharp Shot. Sharp Shot is known as once of the worst Intellivision games and I still feel using two games from it to try to make it seem like there are more games on the controller than what actually are on it is really crappy. Volleyball is based on Spiker Super Pro Volleyball for the Intellivision.

 

I looked at the back of the box at K-Mart and I think my hunch about the so called new game Long Drive Golf being derived from a part of Chip Shot Super Pro Golf was correct. Why couldn't they have just included the whole game?

 

Larcen -- they did re-release Treasure of Tarmin as "Minotaur" on the "Intellivision Rocks" emulation disc for PC/Mac. This is the "unbranded" version of the game, just like "Deadly Discs" in the new plug and play is good old TRON Deadly Discs without the trademarked characters.

 

They also released AD&D Cloudy Moutain on Intellivision Lives for the PC/Mac under the name Adventure.

Edited October 9, 2006 by BrianC

[Flojomojo]

That explains why I've never seen Space Gunner before. I assumed it was bunged up especially for this release. I suppose I'll need to try it in emulation to see if it's even close.

[Legend]

I got the Activision one on a whim before I read this. It is indeed pretty bad. It cost about $10. The games are pretty bad ports. It's much like the FB1. Atari games ported to an nes. You can especially tell by the sound. Does not sound like atari sound fx at all. The control is pretty crap. Of course Kaboom is the worst with very bad sound and no paddle control. The controller is pretty akward to hold. Pretty much all the games are bad. From reading this I guess I don't really have to warn anyone to stay away from this one.

 

-Legend

[DrLove0378]

I'm afraid I have to second the Activision Plug & Play getting dumped on. I got one a couple months ago, but I promptly returned it and got my $10 back. I should have known better!

 

I thought, “Surely there's no way they could screw up Pressure Cooker... RIGHT?” Wrong-uh! Horrible control, f***ed-up sound, no music...UGH!

 

The rest of the content was just-as-awfully presented. Activision's games were great in their original forms, but what were they thinking when they decided to back this turd? I wouldn't even take it for $1.00! This isn't even good for taking on the road for a quick retro fix! And like other toys made in China, it was probably chock full of LEAD!

 

 

 

 

 

(I typed this on my Wii... can you tell I have too much time on my hands?)

[Atarifever]

I have the new INTV plug and play. It's not bad, but it feels cheap having two games on there just be two parts of the one game. Still, I think Crown of Kings is worth at least a few bucks, and Space Armada 2 (or plus, or advanced or whatever) is alright. Still, there's not exactly a heap of play in here. One player tennis and Volleyball is not as fun as having a second player I'm sure, and Space Gunner and Maze Shot aren't very fun.